University of Kentucky Diabetes Prevention COBRE

About This Grant

ABSTRACT- OVERALL Prediabetes puts ~96 million US adults at very high risk of developing overt diabetes. Kentucky is a leading state for prediabetes, with 38% of our residents affected by this harbinger disease compared to 33% prevalence of prediabetes throughout the U.S. Under current standards of care, 5-10% of adults with prediabetes transition to diabetes annually, indicating that Kentucky is on the brink of epidemic increases in our already high diabetes burden (13% of KY residents compared to 11% of U.S. resident have diabetes). These statistics highlight the critical need for developing fundamentally new strategies for diabetes prevention that will delay or stop the transition from prediabetes to diabetes throughout Kentucky and our nation. The University of Kentucky (UK) proposes to establish a Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) focused on Diabetes Prevention (UK-DPC). The UK-DPC will leverage support from institutional entities including the UK-wide Diabetes Research Priority Area and the Barnstable Brown Diabetes Center to achieve two overarching goals: (1) to strengthen the foundation of diabetes prevention research by expanding and modernizing diabetes prevention-focused infrastructure across the campus; (2) to couple new infrastructure with personalized mentor teams and a pilot grant program to develop a world-class cohort of junior researchers with expertise in cutting-edge concepts, technologies, and analyses of diabetes prevention strategies. Completion of these two objectives will position our junior researchers for success in securing independent NIH funding and in establishing diabetes prevention as an area of research excellence at UK. Both UK-DPC objectives are unique within the UK campus, and complement the missions of existing entities that focus on equipment investments, student training, and diabetes complications symposia. To achieve our goals, the UKDPC proposes to establish three new cores. The Diabetes Prevention Data Solutions Core, led by diabetes investigators with expertise in biostatistics, bioinformatics and machine learning, will enhance rigor of experimental design and expand the interpretive value of outcomes in this thematic area. This core will also train diabetes prevention researchers in the skill of analytical consulting. The Diabetes Prevention Phenotyping Core will provide expertise in state-of-the-art human and animal phenotyping to characterize prediabetes in pre-clinical and clinical models. The Phenotyping Core will also spearhead the implementation of cutting-edge technologies in diabetes prevention research to lower the burden of introducing new methods to UK-DPCsupported projects. The Administrative Core will provide oversight, organization, outcome tracking, and reporting. The impact of a cohesive UK-DPC is an increase in the number of junior faculty who are successful in addressing critical research questions in diabetes prevention. New infrastructure, including core capabilities and the intentional fostering of a collaborative culture of mentor/junior faculty/core teams, will complement existing strengths to establish UK as a national leader in diabetes prevention research.